All posts for the month October, 2016

In a world where time is increasingly at a premium, it is fascinating how we come up with new ways to waste it on a regular basis…largely involving mobile phones and tablets…and then often badging it as “social” media. Much like my writing this post I suppose!

I’ve been using Facebook for a while now and I have found it interesting to observe how different people use it…I kind of figure there are different “personalities” at play in Facebookland. I thought I’d try and pigeonhole them…see where you fit (perhaps in more than one from time to time)…

The Tell All – someone who uses Facebook generally to tell you about everything they are doing or where they are going. This type of person is probably easy to burgle if their privacy settings aren’t right. Most users do this occasionally (and it can be really interesting) because life is about new experiences but surely not about announcements of the mundane…

The Ghost – you would never know they were an active user…they never post anything and seemingly just use Facebook to check up (or snoop?) on people…no point being their “friend” really. The only way you’d know that they’re alive is if someone tags them or if they change their photo (which is rare).

The Quoter – this person likes to share quotations or things like personality tests…presumably because they are trying to motivate themselves or want to tell you something about themselves in a roundabout way. Kind of curious on a psychological level really.

The Bean Counter – this is the type of individual who values the quantity of “friends” they have immensely. They will probably want to be your friend even though you barely know them. They may even tell you about the number of fiends they have. They probably have very few real friends but quantity rules over quality – for them.

The Selfie King/Queen – some people just like taking photos of themselves. There really aren’t many good selfies out there. Strange how modern culture has led to this…are we really that lonely as individuals within a species? What happened to asking a kind stranger to take your picture in the hope of it actually being decent?

The Quizzer – there are loads of quizzes circulating in Facebookland and there are those folks who feel that they have to tell you what they’ve scored on a quiz so that maybe you want a go as well. Kind of weirdly passive-competitive.

The “Share This If You Are My Friend” Person – for some people, being their actual friend isn’t enough, they have to ask you to share random nonsense with everyone else, and thus ask your own friends to do the same. These sharing activities are rarely meaningful and generally serve minimal purpose.

Solidarity – similar to the previous person…and can be a rare activity of the Ghost. When something of note happens in the world (usually something bad), they will put a national flag filter or suchlike on a profile photo to show they care. Why not do something useful and proactive to help instead?

The Liker / Sharer – they use Facebook to keep abreast of things they are interested in and like it or share it with friends. Simple. Often very interesting too…sometimes not.

Love Me, Love My Children – you can fully understand why parents like to post pictures of their kids because the kids are at the centre of their lives. With close friends it is nice to see this side of life. With anyone else, it feels strangely voyeuristic and peculiar to have this sort of family insight.

Hidden Depths – it is very unusual for people to discuss anything in any detail or of a personal nature on Facebook (some people would struggle to do this face-to-face). This is easy to understand because you don’t really know who is going to read it but I feel it is great when people do use this tool to reach out to others on an emotional level…just like true friends actually would.

The Offender – let’s be honest, in all forms of “social media”, there are people who feel that they have total freedom to try to offend as many people as possible or embarrass others (“antisocial media”?) – as if the fact they are not in a room with someone gives them anonymity. Unfriend? Unfollow? Block? You decide.

The Analyst – I can’t very well pour scorn and cynicism on the use of Facebook without pouring it on myself for finding the way people use it to be of interest can I? At the end of the day, they are friends to varying levels and most of what is posted by friends is by default fairly interesting or you would perhaps unfriend them! Just remember that politics and religion are foolish subjects for public forum!

I am sure there are far more types than this of course…and there is no substitute for actual face-to-face friendship…now please…do expand on it if you wish…and do share this if you are my friend! Hahaha! 🙂

You don’t get to see the ice cream before you order it but you can taste as many as you like from the menu while you decide. Yum.

What happens next is art. To label it an ice cream shop seems derogatory…because it is more like an art gallery.

You place your order and the staff beaver away behind the counter (unseen) and you are then presented with something which makes you smile, makes you take a photograph and most important of all makes you want to come back again next time you are in town.

Mass production is all well and good…but you just can’t beat something that someone takes their time to perfect.

During my time in New Zealand and my increasing interest in Conservation of native species here, I feel a important question is at the centre of this…is it murder? Is it right to preserve species by killing others?

When people arrived in New Zealand, it marked the beginning of the end for many native species such as flightless birds (like the Moa) either because they were hunted or because people brought species with them which predated on native species or increased competition with them.

At the end of the day, people are to blame. The real difference between New Zealand and many other places is that as this is a relatively new country, we live in a more enlightened age and people have a chance to reverse those mistakes and save those we have impacted for the future.

However, to do this, rats, stoats, ferrets, mice, possums and more have to be managed by trapping, hunting, poisoning etc…often killing other species in the process. I find this quite hard to accept in some ways but also acknowledge that without it many species do not stand a chance. Conservation is, in this case at least, about killing…but people also need to change in the way they behave and in the way they manage their pets (cats and dogs in particular).

The New Zealand government has stated that they want New Zealand to be completely pest-free by 2050. This is an incredibly ambitious statement of intent and one which I would love to see become reality because a land without wildlife is barren and without joy.

There have already been some remarkable success stories such as rescuing the Chatham Island Black Robin from just one surviving female and I hope that more rescues can rejuvenate this land and many others around the world.

It amazes me when I think about it just how much plastic (and other materials) we throw away and don’t recycle on an ongoing basis.

This morning, it occurred to me that on buying meat in the supermarket and it being put in a plastic bag (in addition to its existing plastic tray and cling film wrapping) that that bag would be used for about ten minutes until I got it home. This is truly appalling wastage and is not uncommon either. So many of the things we buy are excessively packaged (do we really need cereal in a bag AND a box – for example?) and we buy so many things that might be used for negligible time or purpose.

The oceans are becoming increasingly polluted by plastic. I have seen statistics that by charging people for plastic bags that their use has gone down by around 90% in the UK which is a staggering figure. I have recently been pleased to discover that all of the major supermarkets in New Zealand are offering a recycling service for soft plastic packaging which is great news! The amount of litter I now generate has dropped markedly.

In a time when we are worrying about climate change, perhaps it is also time to really ask ourselves about how many of our Earth’s dwindling resources we really need to use and look at how disposable any manufactured items will be (thank goodness those silly plastic toys aren’t in cereal boxes any more!) and tax them accordingly.

Arguably, no country typifies film-making or is more obsessed by filmstars than America. Many of us recognise so many places in the USA because of TV and film.

It is hard not to get wrapped up in this a little when you visit places and indeed seek out those places you recognise but I find it fascinating that someone in Philadelphia decided to commission an actual statue to commemorate Rocky Balboa. Not far down the road you can visit a museum of Rodin’s sculptures (i.e. wonderful art) but I can well imagine that this replica of Sylvester Stallone gets more tourist visitors each year. A little peculiar how in this instance people have commissioned another form of art to commemorate art itself.

It seems that in an age when cinema seems to be producing more and more remakes (which are often far worse than the original anyway) that perhaps it is a dying art form but hopefully there will still be original stories to tell many years from now.

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